Two Three Gitmo Journos Un-Banned; Pentagon’s Love-Hate Affair With the Press Continues [Updated]

Does the Pentagon hate us reporters? Of course not. It love-hates us.

About a week ago, a memo leaked from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, telling his Pentagon officials to tighten up their relations with journalists. Judging from his press conference yesterday, even if Gates’ new rules effectively allow his communications people to veto major interviews with senior department officials, he doesn’t want the media to think Defense Department is under some post-McChrystal lockdown. Case in point: Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald is flying back out to Guantanamo Bay on Sunday after the Pentagon abruptly reversed its decision to ban her from reporting from the detention facility. But she and another colleague are the only reporters banned from Gitmo, so far, who’ve been unbanned, meaning there are still two others who can’t return. [See final update below.]

On the late afternoon of May 6, while a group of 15 reporters (including me) filed their dispatches on pre-trial proceedings in the military commission of detainee Omar Khadr, we learned that four journos were now thrown off the island. Our colleagues’ offense: to report the name of a former Khadr interrogator, Specialist Joshua Claus, who testified anonymously, even though that witness had already publicly identified himself in an on-the-record interview — and even though the judge on the case never ruled that any reporter violated the protective order he imposed on the witness. Along with Rosenberg, the Toronto Star‘s Michelle Shephard, the Globe & Mail‘s Paul Koring and Canwest’s Steven Edwards were also banned. (Full disclosure: I like all of those dudes.)

After two months of appeals to the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Public Affairs shop in which the news orgs said their reporters did nothing wrong, a meeting yesterday got Rosenberg reinstated. McClatchy, the Herald’s parent company, reports that the Pentagon Press Association met with Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Wilson and press-office chief Colonel Dave Lapan to complain about the reporting restrictions posed by the military commissions’ ground rules. (You’re always in the presence of media handlers at Guantanamo, who even tell you which showers you can use.) In addition to that meeting, Rosenberg attorney Dave Schulz parleyed Wednesday with Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer. The upshot: yesterday, one of Wilson’s deputies who attended the meeting with the news organizations, Bryan Whitman, e-mailed McClatchy’s attorney to say Rosenberg had agreed to the ground rules and can come back to the island for the conclusion of Khadr’s pre-trial hearing on Monday.

“I think this is a good first step,” Rosenberg tells Danger Room. “But our lawyers and news groups are still engaging the Pentagon on its recent, expansive interpretation of military censorship powers at Guantanamo. Never before did they say we can’t report stuff that’s already public. Even the CIA didn’t try to blacklist journalists who reported that Bob Novak outed Valerie Plame.” #Shotsfired!

It’s unclear exactly why the Pentagon changed its mind about Rosenberg. She says she reiterated her respect for the ground rules to the Defense Department press shop, but she never conceded violating them in the first place. Still, that might have been enough for the Pentagon. In a June 15 letter, Rosenberg wrote Whitman, “until such time as it is modified, revoked or invalidated, I will fully abide by the media policy.” But nearly a month passed between Rosenberg’s letter and her reinstatement. Still, her letter basically meant that she won’t be reporting Claus’ name until the policy changes — and McClatchy and other news organizations are still pushing the Defense Department for precisely such changes.

Mark Seibel, the managing editor of McClatchy’s Washington bureau, told Danger Room he intends to continue a “concerted effort” by several news organizations to make the ground rules more sensible; to make commission judges the arbiters of when the rules are violated; and for “effective due process” so reporters can address disputes as they occur. In short, McClatchy and its partner organizations want to ensure that the Guantanamo rules “are in place for actual reasons of national security and not simply to hamper reporters’ ability to do their jobs,” as Seibel put it.

McClatchy has argued to Johnson that banning reporters from noting public information is illegal “prior restraint” and violates the First Amendment. As for Rosenberg’s substantive reporting, Seibel says, “From Carol’s perspective, since McClatchy believes she never violated any ground rules and that the Pentagon’s interpretation of those ground rules is illegal, I don’t think much will change.”

But just because Rosenberg is heading back to Guantanamo doesn’t mean her Canadian counterparts are. The Canadian news organizations opted not to participate in the forum that McClatchy and others used with Wilson and Lapan. “At this point,” Shephard IMs, “my status is unknown and I’m just waiting for word back.” E-mails and phone messages left with Edwards and Koring have not yet been returned. [Update, 1:45 p.m.: Edwards, currently on vacation, got in touch to say that the Pentagon has un-banned him as well. He plans to return to Guantanamo on August 5 to resume covering Khadr’s military commission.] [Update, 8:31 p.m.: Shephard emails to say she’s gotten late word from the Defense Department that she’s allowed to return to Guantanamo on Sunday with her colleagues.]

It’s possible that the Pentagon press shop just wanted a face-saving way out of the Guantanamo reporter ban. If so, that’s in line with the message Gates issued in his presser yesterday. “The purpose here is to be as responsive to you as we have always been, but for us to do a better job of preparing people before they have interviews,” Gates said. His memo, issued after Stanley McChrystal imploded in a Rolling Stone profile, instructs senior Pentagon and military leaders to clear “interviews or any other means of media and public engagement with possible national or international implications” with Wilson’s shop ahead of time. It’s not difficult to see that having a chilling effect, either from officers who figure a reporter’s inquiry isn’t worth the hassle, or from public affairs figuring discretion — that is, denying interview requests — is the better part of valor.

Since taking over for Donald Rumsfeld in 2007, Gates has repeatedly said that the media is “not the enemy” — reversing his predecessor’s perspective — something that appears undercut by the secretary’s post-McChrystal memo.But Gates contended that he’s just trying to stop his people from talking out of their lane. “If you’re a captain in a unit that has an embedded reporter, as long as you’re within the guidelines and the rules, we expect you to be open with that embedded reporter,” he said, emphasizing that “the kind of reporting you do, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the tools that I have in trying to lead this department and correct problems.”

It’s doubtful that Rosenberg’s reinstatement is a consequence of the unrelated Gates media memo. But no one — in uniform or in the media — knows more about Guantanamo than Carol Rosenberg, the most consistent beat reporter covering the detention facility since its 2002 inception. She’s been to Guantanamo about 100 times, including an epic 41-day stay in 2008 during marathon commissions hearings, while most tours of duty at Gitmo for officers and enlisted men last a single year and most reporters do a handful of trips at most. If Gates is looking to learn from reporters about problems at Guantanamo Bay, Rosenberg’s is the first byline to run through Nexis.

On the other hand, no one knows more about Omar Khadr than Michelle Shephard, who literally wrote the book on Khadr. And right now, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to return to Guantanamo to cover his imminent military commission.

Update, 5:56 p.m.: Shephard says in an email that the Defense Department has informed her she will not be attending Sunday’s trip back to Guantanamo for the end of Omar Khadr’s pre-trial hearing. She hopes to be reinstated by August, when his military commission is scheduled to begin in earnest.

Update, 8:31 p.m.: Never mind! Shephard follows up to say she’s gotten late word from the Defense Department that she’s welcome to return to Guantanamo on Sunday. Still no word from Koring, though.